EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — After two straight losses, the Giants haven’t lost any of their confidence.
At 7-4 heading into a Week 13 matchup with the Washington Commanders, the Giants are about to do something that hasn’t occurred in quite some time. And that would be playing meaningful football in December.
“It’s exciting. I’ve been a competitor my whole life. I played football my whole life,” Julian Love said about playing for a playoff spot. “I’ve always played to me good football down the stretch regardless of high school, college. So this moment, I wouldn’t say is too big for myself and for this team. I think we have some energy. We’re excited. It’s playoffs or go home. That’s kind of the mindset and I’m tired of going home at the end of the season.”
The Giants have been going through a bit of a rough stretch dropping two of straight and three of their last four as they hit a critical stretch of the season. The Commanders are first on the docket before the Giants face the division-leading Philadelphia Eagles, Commanders again, Minnesota Vikings, Indianapolis Colts and Eagles one more time
New York hasn’t been able to get its run game going as effectively over the past two weeks as it had earlier in the year and have struggled to come up with the stops they’ve needed. They gave up three touchdowns in the second half to Dallas last Thursday that erase what had been a 13-7 lead for the Giants.
“I think we still have a lot of confidence in this team,” Daniel Jones said. “I don’t think anyone sees reason to lose faith or lose confidence in our team. We’re, we’re a good team. Certainly, we need to do some things better over the last couple of games that we haven’t done that we were doing better in the beginning of the year. But we’re confident and we’re a good football team.”
Part of the process that the Giants have been trying to keep has been their singular focus. The Giants have mastered the art of taking things one game at a time through the early portion of the season.
Head coach Brian Daboll said keeping that consistency is all the more important now that December is nearly upon his team.
“To me, the biggest thing as a leader is to remain consistent with your approach, to not get too high or low, to not ride any waves. Again, it’s human nature at times. So, your job as a leader is to focus on the things you can control and coach them up,” Daboll said.
The other thing that New York seemingly has going for it now has been the fact that it has been getting healthier. Daboll seemed to indicate positive news about a number of players that could be on the mend.
“I would just say, in general, looks promising for quite a bit of guys,” the Giants coach said.
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Azeez Ojulari sounded like he was ready to get back into the game when he spoke with reporters after practice on Tuesday and Evan Neal was full participant at practice.
“It felt good to be back out there,” Neal said at his locker stall.
